THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1412, 17 November 1904, Page 4

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

HOPEFUL EXPERIMENTS. Some good year, perhaps, vithin .™ ~TI ^ e of men now living (savs Worlds Work') we may solve the liquor problem. The solution in one community will, 0 f course, be different from solution in another,- for the evil takes different forms in rural communities, in small towns, and in large towns. The saloon in New iorki city that is honcstlv and dece.i !v .conducted, and that began operation with a great trade because Bishop lotter made an address when it was opened,, is meant to take one ftcp forward m the complex and difficult problem of managing the liquor traffic in a densely settled tenement region of a great city. By respectable "tnd honest ownership and management, graft may be eliminated from the business. Drinking will not be lessened, perhaps,- but the worst vices and crimes that thrive in degraded sab mis may be discouraged. It is onlv by taking one step forward at a" timo that the large problem of lkpior-sell-ing in the worst quarters of a great crty may bo intelligently attacked. smaller cities, hopeful experiments of other sorts are going on. For instance, the working of the dispensary system (which is a system of mu.iici- ***?? - State monopoly of the liquor traffic) is illustrated by the experience of Bale»gh, the capital of North Carolina. All saloons were forbidden, and the city dispensary was opened on January 1, lyw. All kinds of liquors are sold, and sold at a profit, but they are sold only in sealed bottles. which may not be opened on the premises. The whole of last vear. when there were private licensed saloons, the city's revenue from licenses vj.s only about eight thousand dollars; for the first half of this y.-ar. -a hen the city haS had a monopoly of the traffic, the revenue was more than ten thousand dollars. The dispensary, of course, paid besides a county ami a State tax. The first half of' last year there were 331 arrests for drunkenness ; the first half of this year 190 ; and the arrests from all causes have fallen off one-third. The c, mmissioners under whose direction the dispensary is conducted arc men of high standing, and they arc more or less prominent members of the leading churches. The market-keepers say that laboring men have bought more vegetables since this Jaw has been in effect and the grocers.also report th.it the wage-earners live better. In many parts' of the South, under general statutes supplemented by local laws, tho evil has recently been greatly checked. This is true especially iii North Carolina, Tennessee, and Tex.-is. Those are * hopeful experiments in dealing with the problem under wholly different conditions from the conditions in largo cities.